Revolution
by OhMyRaito
Summary: When a group of criminals calling themselves CU emerge from the underworld, holding children captive in exchange for the Note, what will Kira do? It's a new kind of revolution and this time, L's unsure which side he stands on.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I'd just like to apologise to anyone who was offended by the use of the Edelweiss Pirates. It was insensitive of me to use it, and I'm grateful that a reviewer pointed that out to me – I can be oblivious. Also, the German probably still isn't perfect, but I have tried to fix it. Again, I'm sorry, truly.

* * *

'…_40 girls have been kidnapped from around the world at 3.00am. 5 of them are from England. Carrie Young, Sophie Langford, Elizabeth Hol…'_

'…_esident's daughter was taken at 3.00am this morning. 4 more girls, around the same age as Sandy, were also kidnapped around this time. They were all white daughters of well-to-do fam…'_

'…_Polizei keine Idee. Die Familien sind in vieler Verzweiflung und wir bitten um jedermann mit Informatione__n…'_

* * *

Raito had been expected to be perfect at all times, with everything. It wasn't expectations from his family, or his teachers, or the outside world, but himself who exerted this pressure. Without the strain, he wouldn't have been able to be as good as he was, and he knew this. His brain, though brilliant, was prone to wander and laze unless a goal presented itself. It was when he was seven and first endured a beating for being a 'nerd', that Raito became interested in fighting.

He approached his father, who told him he'd teach him when he was older, and that fighting someone was not something to be taken lightly. Physical force was always a last resort, and should be dealt with carefully. Raito sat through his father's words and accepted them as gospel. And then, when he was fourteen years old, his father taught him how to fight according to the NPA's guidelines, with ten ways to kill and immobilise a man. His father taught him how to fight with honour, and how kicking someone when they were down was a bad thing to do. And then, when Raito had fully absorbed the lessons his father had to offer, he headed into the streets and learnt how to fight dirty, with people in alleyways where honour was as laughable as justice.

But his father's lessons had never left him. Soichiro was a good father, and had instilled the right kind of morals in his son. It wasn't his fault that a talented mind and days of boredom had warped and twisted these ideals into something else. It wasn't his fault humanity failed to live up to his expectations. He did what he could to keep his son on the right path.

And it was these ideals, this thought of honour, twisted and outdated as it was, that made Raito pause on the rainy rooftop.

* * *

"Of course, President. I shall inquire straight away." Watari's voice was warm, like the pages of an old book relaxing by the fire. "Again, I'm deeply sorry for your loss." The click resounded in the small room, and the old man rubbed at his temples. Sometimes he felt like nothing more than a secretary for the young prodigy. The phone rang and the man picked it up, light from a computer screen dancing on the liver-spotted hand.

"Hello, Prime Minister. I'm afraid he's out at the moment…"

* * *

The rain seemed to dance and bounce, hitting the slick surface of the rooftop and then rebounding as though the tower was too evil for them to touch. If that was the case, Raito thought he could sympathise. There had been too many bad times in the tower for him to regard it with any affection, and any good times he'd had while without his memories were tainted with his own self-loathing at being so close to L without killing him.

The rain didn't seem to be stopping any time soon, and the sound was almost deafening. Of course, L seemed oblivious. L always seemed oblivious, part of his carefully constructed persona. Sometimes Raito had dreams about the persona being as fragile as a card castle, and he pictured himself knocking the cards together and watching pieces of L fall away to reveal…Who? Who was L underneath that supposedly dazed exterior? Who was it that he had forced Rem to kill?

It was this that was causing him to wonder if this was truly the right thing to do.

"Ryuuzaki."

Yet another persona. He wondered where that came from, wondered if these names all had some significance to the enigma that was L. And he was such a puzzle, something that Raito's mind had pored over, traced every detail, every bump, and tried to find some weakness, all to no avail. Could he let such a puzzle go without figuring it out?

* * *

"Kira-sama! Kill the kidnappers! Return our girls to us! Please!"

"Give the girls back, give the girls back, someone give the girls back!"

"Oh, Lord, where art thou? Where art thou, Kami-sama? Why hast thou forsaken us?" The placards jostled and fought with each other and the voices wound together like threads to create a rope with which to hang the kidnappers.

A brave reporter held out a microphone to a distraught citizen and said, "What is your opinion on the kidnappings?"

"How could something like this happen in Kira's world? Tell me that! Why would that 'God' allow this to happen?"

* * *

The genius turned towards L, and the eyes seemed to be made of quicksilver, emotions making the dark grey depths swirl and shift shades. It struck Raito that L's eyes were like justice, shades of grey, not black and white, and it hit him hard that he hadn't thought of it before_. How much is undiscovered?_

"Can you hear the bells?"

Bells? What bells? He shook his head, replied in the negative, and tried to hear something over the din of the rain. But even their voices seemed to be struck by the tiny droplets of water, the volume shifting like the colour of L's eyes.

"We should go back in." And that voice that was all Kira's spoke and hissed in the back of his mind about how the mighty L should be humiliated in front of the task force, and that his death should be watched and mocked. He closed his eyes tighter, because this was what he wanted, this was what he needed. L needed to die.

So, why did he feel like he was making the biggest mistake of his life?

The adrenalin should have been pumping right now, and there should be some kind of smug satisfaction and that usual, giddy feeling of being God should've inhabited his body.

L nodded, and seemed defeated, which didn't help Raito, didn't help at all. He walked passed, laid a hand on Raito's shoulder, and the touch seared his skin. _This man is going to die, this man is going to die…Why? Because he told me to? Because he's the biggest threat? But look at the world; it's already practically crime-free. Because he can expose me? But I'm going to do that anyway, sit atop the throne of my new world, as God, as Justice. So why?_

Their footsteps echoed on the stairs, and the resonance seemed to sting at Raito's ears. He rubbed his watch against his skin, felt the warm metal slide around his slender wrist. It was a nervous habit these days, a tell, but he didn't stop it. There was no point. The only person who would notice was walking in front of him, dripping droplets that sang metallic notes as they hit the floor, apparently resigned to his death.

Raito wondered what had given him away. A certain light in his eyes? A certain grin at the wrong time? It was impossible, but L seemed to know that his time was up. And that scared Raito just a little bit, and filled him with righteous indignation. Why did L know him so well, and why did he know so little of the spindly detective?

Maybe it was the fact that, even though he'd won the game and proven he was better, it didn't feel right when L wasn't in possession of all the facts. Maybe it was because – and Raito's breath hitched as realisation crashed down. Words flew through his mind in the rumbling voice of his father, the phlegm-y catch at the back of his throat a testament to a habit he'd given up for his kids. There was no honour in this kind of fight, no honour in out-witting his opponent by merely holding some of the cards out of his reach.

He'd often wondered what L would have done if the notebook had fallen down in front of his…what school did L go to? Did he even go to school? How long had he been masquerading as L? All these questions and they made the water murky, made his thoughts unclear and his convictions – his convictions – he let out a sound of anger and punched the wall.

L turned slightly to him, lifted his thumb to his lips and said, "Is Yagami-kun okay?" Yagami-kun, Yagami-kun…what happened to Raito-kun? And where were the percentages, quoted whenever Raito slipped up or displayed more emotions than he should have? Where was his L?

"I'm fine." L stared at him a little longer with those quicksilver eyes, and then nodded.

"Yagami-kun knows best." And that simple, absent-minded statement sent a new wave of anger through Raito and all he wanted was some kind of fight. Some kind of battle. Just like before. Anything but this quiet resignation.

* * *

_Logged in: Hershey_

_Logged in: Hail-Kira_

_Logged in: Lappen_

**Hershey: **Where are the rest?

_Logged in: J'aime_

_Logged in: Mao Tse Tung_

_Logged in: Kat67_

**Lappen: **Impatient as always, Hershey. **Inu **paged me earlier and said he was having some difficulty getting out of the country.

_Logged in: Kira-luva_

**Hershey: **Nice of you to join us, KL. Did your business dealings go well?

**Kira-luva: **'Course. In my country, transactions are carried out promptly and efficiently.

**Hail-Kira: **We was O.K.

**Lappen: **Ja, es war sehr gut und wir treffen - Ah, sorry, English, English. You don't understand German, do you, Hail-Kira? Barely understand English.

**Hail-Kira: **Fuck you, Lappen.

**Lappen: **Know the naughty words though. Arschloch. We met up with some of my men, spread the goods around. What about everyone else, did they get their packages?

**Hershey: **Yes.

**J'aime: **Oui.

**Kat67: **Yeah.

**Mao Tse Tung: **Yes.

**Hershey: **Well, you know what to do from here on out. Distribute them evenly.

_Kira-luva logged out._

_Mao Tse Tung logged out._

**Lappen: **Hey Hail-Kira, use a translator for the big words, ja?

_Hail-Kira logged out._

_J'aime logged out._

**Kat67: **Who's making the broadcast, then?

**Lappen: **There are more Americans than English or Germans. I say you, Hershey.

**Kat67: **Are you kidding? He's got a really strong NY accent.

**Hershey: **I'll be using a voice modifier anyway. It'll be too scrambled for them to notice my accent.

**Hershey: **Anyway, we have other business. Lappen, stop antagonising our India connection. If he gets angry and pulls out, we're fucked.

**Lappen: **Never heard/read you swear before, Hershey. Ok. I've got some fancy foreigner in my shop, talk at the next meeting. Next week, in Justice Serves You Kira, ja?

**Kat67: **In JSYK? I thought it was here again? Whatever. Bye.

_Lappen logged out._

**Hershey: **I'll send it to the Kanto area of Japan first, okay?

**Kat67: **Watch yourself, brother.

**Hershey: **Don't worry. I've been watching CSI.

**Kat67: **-laughs- See you.

_Kat67 logged out._

_Hershey logged out._

* * *

Raito stared down at the head of black hair that moved ever so slightly as the detective dried Raito's feet. The Kira in him was gleeful, because never before had L looked so submissive, never before had he bowed down before Kira. And that was his correct position, to bow down in front of the glory that was Kira, that was Raito. So why did it unsettle him?

L looked up, and the eyes caught his attention. L was saying something and so was he, but he couldn't recall what it was. He remembered the cold of the tiles on his hands though, as he braced himself on his palms. And he could remember the puffs of L's breath that warmed his legs and the way he could see the muscles flexing under L's shirt. He didn't know if L knew it or not, but when the light hit his white t-shirts in a certain way, they became translucent. Raito didn't know when he'd found this out, only that he knew it, and he knew it well.

It seemed wrong, but he couldn't do anything about it, and Kira was cackling wildly in the back of his head like a baddie in a B-rated horror film. Everything seemed muted, and Raito truly felt for the first time, that he was in a world of his own, that this was his new world, and L was there, looking at him with those quicksilver eyes that he'd never noticed before now. And then Matsuda ran into the world of cold tiles and clean sunlight, and their eyes snapped to his panicked form.

"Raito! L! Come look!" And they stood up, L's knees cracking ever so slightly underneath the denim of his jeans. Raito tried to catch the emotions again in L's eyes, but they were shut off, as blank and dazed as they'd been that first time in the exam hall. And Kira rejoiced at the homecoming of his opponent, but Raito hated it, almost as much as he hated what he needed to do. And then Raito was gone. And Kira grinned.

He walked into the room with the big TV and the computer screens glaring at him with bulbous eyes. His father turned to him, and so did the rest of the force. That was how it was meant to be – pay attention to Kira, and _only _Kira. Then he caught sight of what was on TV and his breath hitched.

* * *

(Mommy? Mommy, where are you? Are you…are you…)

The fabric of the ties rubbed against Sandy's wrists when she tried to move, and she cried out, but the gag in her mouth muffled the sound. A smell she was unfamiliar with, metallic and old and damp, attacked her senses and filled her head with a muggy fog. She could hear footsteps to the front of her and a voice with a New York accent saying, "Smile, Sandy. The whole world's watching you now."

And that sounded so much like what her mother had said when her father had won the election that she cried, big, fat tears sliding down her cheeks like slugs.

(Mommy? Mommy? Where are you…? I wanna go home, I wanna go…I wanna go _home…_)

* * *

Kira felt L move past him, felt the fabric of his shirt rub against his own, and then the spidery detective was sitting on a swivel chair that he turned to speak into a microphone.

"Watari, what is this?" The man's voice was monotone, and Kira was glad to see the lack of resignation and the return of some kind of life. What would be the fun in killing something already dead? And in some place, deep down, it sickened Raito that he found some kind of enjoyment in killing people.

"A tape sent to Sakura TV. The group who sent it are calling themselves CU."

Raito tilted his head, frowning. 'CU' could be an acronym for various phrases, and didn't even give a country of origin.

A mechanical voice, similar to L's when he had first sent out the broadcast where he had tricked Raito with Lind. L. Taylor, spoke out into the silent room. "We are CU. We are the only ones willing to stand against Kira.

"Kira! We speak to you! This morning at 3.00am, 40 girls were kidnapped. Five from these countries – the UK, America, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, India and China. If you do not relinquish your notebook - " There was a collective gasp. Raito's eyes were fixed on the blonde girl on the screen. His fists were clenched as his eyes darted from the blindfold, to the gag, to the way all her limbs were bound, to the dirty room she was in and the newspaper with today's date stuck on the back wall. "We will kill a girl each day. And we will kidnap more. You cannot find us. You cannot kill us. And you _will_ give up your power. If you wish to do so, contact us via TV, and we will send more information. And L! Do not try to find us. We will find you. And we will deal _only _with you. Once the notebook is handed over, we will surrender to you." The screen flickered and the image of the girl faded quickly.

Raito left the room immediately after the broadcast was finished, a hand held over his mouth as he feigned sickness. He needed to find Rem.

* * *

L tilted his head. The task force room was cleared, Raito having gone home, and the others having left for their rooms. He pushed the cake away from him, sighed and stretched his arms out in front of him. The muscles and bones clicked into place. The sounds echoed in the room in a way that he was entirely familiar with.

"Watari. Continue the experiment with the notebook and the prisoners." There was a pause.

"L? Are you sure that's entirely - "

"Yes. I am sure. And then get me Roger on the phone." L stared at the cake. Today, he had been so _sure_… " I wish for Near, Mello and Matt."

* * *

**A/N: **I promised myself that I would do a DN chaptered fic when I had the chance. I don't really have the chance, and should be working on Hear Me Out, but…-shrug- FF's messed up again and I can't get to the documents in document manager, meaning I can't finish writing up chapter five.

I'm not sure if this will be a MattxMello or an LxRaito. Or both, though that seems unlikely. Either way, it'll be yaoi. So sorry, het-lovers…But have you noticed how male dominated the Death Note-verse is? I mean, really…talk about a patriarchal society…

And yes, this is fractured and everything, but I figured that a lot was going on, so…Not all the chapters will be like this. Uhm. Is it too hard to follow?

**Disclaimer: **Don't own, but please, please someone sell me the rights…

The formatting might be screwed up on this as my Doc manager seems to be rebelling. I've tried fixing the html manually, but...Well, I'm no Matt.


	2. Chapter 2

The blonde girl dressed in leather underwear gave the burly man with biceps like boulders another uppercut to the neck, and then a triple hit combo that had him on the floor bleeding from the head, and Mello biting viciously into his chocolate. The words 'Game Over' flashed in red and some ridiculous song played in the background. Matt cracked his knuckles and grinned.

"Mello. You suck." He laughed under his breath. Mello growled.

"You suck my cock, so shut up."

"You wish." Hormones made that kind of awkward when it came out, so he pretended he hadn't said it. "Best out of five?"

Mello grabbed the controller, smearing melted chocolate on the joystick and _hel_lo innuendo. Matt blinked and tried to focus on the game, though muscle memory worked better than thought half the time anyway. Roger walked into the room, closing the door behind him, and coughed in order to get attention. Mello's character delivered a spinning kick, which shouldn't be physically possible at that speed with that body, but Matt knew games didn't really care about physics and shit like that. Matt _liked _that games didn't really care about physics and shit like that. Mello should take a cue from his games. Roger coughed, and Matt figured he should take his cue too.

"What." Mello had his blonde bimbo with breasts in a chokehold, and Matt figured that maybe muscle memory wasn't better than thought after all. Damn, Mello learned fast.

"You're going to L. In Japan. Pack your bags in an hour."

'Game Over' flashed on the screen, and the door closed behind Roger.

"Fuck yeah." Mello muttered, and bit into his chocolate.

* * *

Inu had a girl in the back of his truck, her words suffocated by duct tape, and limbs bound by black plastic ties. She was slightly chubby, in the way that her stomach bunched over in her clothes and made her thighs spread. Black hair and this stupid sob that wouldn't go away, too, and Inu wasn't too keen on this one.

"Oi. Shuttup." He shouted in Japanese, before pulling into his mother's house. She'd left three years ago, but it was still his mother's home. He'd never changed the wallpaper, the cutlery, the plates and cups. Not even the sheets on her bed, which his mates told him was fucking creepy, but fuck that. His mother was the only woman he could trust. And now he was going to have to trust some fat slut in the back of his truck because of stupid customs at airports.

Her arm felt like soft dough when he grabbed her and pulled her into his house, arm quickly moving around her waist and pulling her close so no one could see the tape and the binding. Or maybe they could. Whatever. They wouldn't do anything – Kira had made people apathetic as well as zealous. No one reported crimes anymore because Kira was God, and God saw everything. They murmured Kira while fingering their rosary beads, and forgot that 'Kira' was just an adaptation of the English word 'killer'. Stupid fuckers, praying to a glorified murderer. It's not like anyone prayed for _him _anymore. So why does some fucktard with a notebook get all the joy?

She whimpered, and he realised with disgust that her fat tears had been soaking into his top. Shit. The door opened under his fingers, and he pulled her along to the thin wooden door to the basement. Cliché, but whatever. He had to get them out of the way and fucking _think _because how was he supposed to get five prepubescent girls out of the country after Hershey's TV announcement yesterday? She stumbled as she walked down the stairs, but he figured if she fell, she'd be cushioned enough anyway. He locked the door and held his head in his hands at the kitchen counter. The floral pattern of the curtains was one his mother had spent hours picking out of a catalogue and saving up for. Fucking floral.

His mobile flashed with 'incoming call; Zack' and he snatched it up. "Yo." It was one of the only English words he knew, so it was a good thing Zack knew Japanese.

"Yo yourself. Listen, I can get you some fake passports that aren't really fake, if you get what I mean, and I know this great makeup artist who can make you seem like another person, hell, even another nationality. We'll be there in an hour or so, okay?"

"Okay." The countertop had a new chip in, and small fractures ricocheted throughout the whole black mock-marble top. It made him cringe.

"Good. Chin up. This is gonna work." Inu nodded, and put the phone down. This was gonna work. He wiped at the damp spot on his shirt. Fat slut.

* * *

L picked the strawberry off of the icing and popped it into his mouth. He had been backtracking through his system, trying to find where the hacker had entered from. He had known straight away that the only way anyone outside of the group could know about the Notes was by hacking into his files, simply through process of elimination. No one outside of the group knew, because no one outside of the group would believe it. Yet. They were too caught up in the rapture of a God-like presence, too much in fear and awe of 'God'. And no one in the group had told anyone, because, well – L had them bugged. Trust wasn't something that came easy, and privacy wasn't really that important to L. Well, not in relation to everyone else. In relation to him, well, that was a different story.

He had found the entrance, the 'hole' surrounded by so many codes and traps and triggers that L knew it would take days to untangle and correct. And he had too much to do and not enough computer-savvy people on his team. He picked a piece of white icing and placed it on the tip of his tongue. First he had to form a counter-attack to CU. Obviously, Kira would not be able to respond because Kira was here, with L. Perhaps the second Kira would, but he doubted it. Despite the second Kira's bold attempts to contact the original Kira, he/she seemed to act in deference to the original Kira, which only strengthened the argument of the Raito and Misa alliance; the Japanese patriarchal society, and the way that Misa unconditionally supported Raito.

Also, he couldn't be seen supporting violence such as this, even as a method to bring Kira down. It was cowardly, and although with some intelligent merit, it did not take into account Kira's killing of Lind L. Tailor; Kira no longer only killed the guilty, he killed annoyances too. Plus, people were primarily going to suspect L, and accuse him of being underhanded in his methods of catching Kira. After all, he had long been known as Kira's adversary, and this had provided him with a lot of media backlash from the zealots and the scared. Already there had been reports on the news stations that it was L who had orchestrated the whole thing. His international reputation, as battered by the Kira ordeal as it was, could not withstand the accusations and suspicions of being known as a kidnapper.

He played with the fork, twanging the metal teeth with his bitten fingers and gazing at the .html code on his screen. At least Matt would soon be here. The genius hacker had been able to get into L's files since forever, and since L had seen no harm as long as he didn't touch anything, he hadn't repaired the holes in the walls. Matt had done a better job than the other hacker of covering his tracks anyway, and with his insider knowledge of L's system, hopefully would be able to trace the I.P. address in order to give an identity.

CU were just criminals after all, and L had dealt with a lot of criminals. He knew that they tripped up. It was just a matter of time. A short time too, since he had persuaded British Airways to loan their last Concorde out in order to get the three orphans here as quickly as possible. He really only needed Matt, but the intelligence of Near and Mello could be integral. Truthfully, he didn't want to expose any of his potential successors to Raito or Misa, especially not with his new knowledge of the Note's rules, but yesterday on the rooftop he had realised his mortality and how hard it would be for them to pick up the pieces of his fragmented and closely guarded investigation. The majority of it was stored in his head, and although intelligent and astute young men, it would be near enough impossible, especially as their first major case, to segue smoothly into the role of L. Perhaps being introduced to the case earlier than was previously planned would enable them to not only help L with his investigation, but learn some valuable hands-on experience that couldn't be garnered from reading his stolen case studies.

"So, I think that a televised response would be best, Ryuuzaki." L turned blank eyes to the boy sitting in the swivel chair next to him. Rem hovered in the background near the glass top table, and L let his gaze slide from Raito's face to the Shinigami's form.

There was beauty in her. He found that fitting. Death shouldn't only be ugly.

"Mm. Raito knows best." He murmured, and noted a flash in those dark hazel eyes that warmed him. It was welcomed. He felt like a ghost, silvery and unsubstantial, the ring of bells echoing in his voice. He shouldn't be here. Cold fingers (was he in shock?) pushed the '/' key and he nodded. "I do not see any other way to contact them. A televised response would be ideal. Do we have all the information on all of the girls yet?"

Matsuda shifted and blushed. "A-Almost." L nodded, and returned to his screen. "Uh. Uh, Ryuuzaki? How do they know about the Death Note?" Matsuda sounded alone in his question, the silence afterwards embarrassed, but when L swivelled in his chair he could see the other members listening too. Ah. He had forgotten to tell them.

"It is my fault. They somehow entered into the mainframe of my computer and read my files. I do not know how they managed to, but I assume it is a criminal exercising his criminal tendencies in the only way he can these days. Or perhaps he was a Kira supporter and attempted to sabotage me, but then discovered that his 'God' was in fact only borrowing power and was very much human, and felt disillusioned. I do not know. But he obtained the information from me."

He didn't apologise. He didn't need to. It was a mistake that could be rectified, and therefore he did not need to apologise.

But for some reason, he had this guilt weighing on his shoulders. Whether it was because he hadn't died or because he had been the cause of 40 girls being kidnapped, he did not know. He disliked psychoanalysing himself. It always turned up too many dark corners, and cobwebbed skeletons. He was Justice. Justice was supposed to be infallible.

But even that was only as a theory.

L rather liked the thought of embodying a theory, though. It fit with the bell-echoes and mercury-blood feeling of today. He placed a forkful of cake in his mouth and turned to Raito. "Would you like to prepare the response? You always have had a, ah, flair for the dramatic."

* * *

_Hershey logged in._

_Kat67 logged in._

_Kat67 requested a private conversation with Hershey._

**Hershey: **Did Zack contact you?

**Kat67: **Yeah, Inu's bloody well gone and fucked it up, the twit. Customs caught him or something, I don't know, but he's on his way now to Inu's mother's house with some passports. He'll be taking two of the girls with him to pass as his sisters, thank fuck he's Asian or that wouldn't have passed, ha.

**Hershey: **Where will he be going?

**Kat67: **Didn't say. The boy's got more trust issues than me and you put together, brother.

**Hershey: **Ha. Did you see my big debut?

**Kat67: **Reckon you've got a flair for it, bro. Next stop, Broadway. See you soon.

**Hershey: **K. Oh, if you could send me all your details for KL, that would be great. He's gone AWOL. Bye.

_Conversation closed._

_Hershey logged out._

_Kat67 logged out._

* * *

Raito breathed in. Breathed out. Aerobic respiration, he knew how it went. It was hard though, with a ghost sitting next to him performing exactly the same scientific process. A ghost who yesterday talked of bells and had quicksilver eyes. A ghost with a past that Raito knew nothing about, and at least everyone else he had killed, he had known their name and their immediate past. But Raito couldn't even be sure about that with L.

L was a mystery. He had been in Japan for a while now, chasing after Kira, chasing after _him_ (and the little voice that was all Kira chuckled in the back of his mind), but even that wasn't certain. He could be jetting off every night when they all go home, work on the case on the airplane, and solve cases that even Raito hadn't been able to prevent. He could go to a family that lived around the corner, could have a secret love affair with Watari, could have a child in England or America or whatever that faint accent was. Raito almost longed for the chains again, almost longed for the familiar feel of the cuff because in that way, at least he was linked to L. In that way, at least he had some reassurance of his existence, his presence, his activities.

But he sat across from Raito, a waif with too big eyes and too pale skin, who existed on sugar and no sleep, and nothing in Raito's brain could explain the medical miracle.

The trouble was, Raito knew, his father. His father and the morals, the ideal of honour that had somehow escaped Raito's mind until yesterday, with the dancing rain and those damn – those damn – well, either way. He couldn't let L go.

There was too much unknown about him. Too much to be discovered.

His _name_, for instance. He couldn't kill him without even knowing his _name_.

"Watari." Monotone, and it was irritating. Yesterday, there had been a lilt of emotion, a tilt in his tone towards something other than nothing. "Did you do as I asked?" There was a short pause. "Both." A longer pause. "Yes." An even longer pause. "You do not need my permission." A shorter pause, and Raito counted fifteen seconds this time before the phone was replaced in the cradle and L returned to the computer.

"See something you like, Yagami-kun?" The tone was absent-minded, but it was better than monotone, and Raito almost replied 'yes'.

"I know code." He said instead, a way of offering his services.

L turned to him with black eyes and bit his thumb. "I'm good." Raito was sure there was an insult in there somewhere, or a secret, or something he wasn't understanding, and that frustrated him. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps L was nothing more than some mathematical equation that Raito needed to figure out. He had never gotten frustrated and given up. He had always worked to solve the problems.

But how do you solve a person?

* * *

The Concorde was sleek, white and clinical, and Near liked it. He didn't like the noise it made as it shot through so many sound barriers though, and had to hold his hands over his ears as he huddled on the plane seat. Mello had laughed at him, but Near had cared more when his teddy was knocked over than when Mello had called him a child. He _was _a child. That was fact. And insults were relative.

When they touched down at the airport, they were ushered into an inconspicuous make of car and driven around for an hour in a manner Near knew was to throw off any followers. The sound of the garage door opening made him pause in the play-pretend with the Gundam and tin solders that Watari had gotten him for Christmas one year, and when the door opened, he was already twirling his hair with his teddy bear tucked under his arm. He was not about to waste time in getting to L by fiddling with his toys longer than necessary. The Gundam would have won anyway – it was better equipped.

The floors were shiny and reflected the lighting above, and they were cold on his feet. He had to stop himself from curling his toes, and contemplated slippers for a moment. They were in Japan, after all. You weren't supposed to wear shoes inside in Japan. You wore slippers. He knew that.

He also knew that L had lost weight from the last time he had seen him, and that he needed his hair cut, and he needed to sleep. His hunch was more pronounced and Near wondered if that was what old age was. But L was only 25. Apparently. Near didn't know if that was fact.

"Hello." L said, and he smiled, and Near smiled back and twirled his hair. "You've grown." And Near clutched his teddy bear tighter.


End file.
